Thanks for this details message post, I really appreciate it. Only correction is that I do not run the Fox team at Microsoft, that job belongs to Ricardo Wenger our group manager. Calvin Hsia is the developer lead, while Randy Brown and Gene Goldhammer are program managers, and we all report to Ricardo. And to add to that, we make decisions as a team on many things.

From reading your message Jim, you will absolutely flip and be super happy with the upcoming Visual FoxPro 8.0 feature set, it is going to be a very exciting new version of VFP. I say this has a VFP developer. :)

>Just wanted to second what you said. At our VFP users group meeting tonight, we demonstrated creating Web Services in VFP, and calling VFP Web Services from .NET. Several points came out:
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>1. It's a cinch to create and publish web services using VFP.
>2. VFP web services work great when consumed from .net apps.
>3. A data-centric web service is a heck of a lot easier to write in VFP than in vb.net or c#, due to the fact that VFP is optimized for data handling (and the other 2 make data handling needlessly complex).
>4. Asp.net looks like a fantastic tool for writing Web apps - why did I waste all that time using asp.original ???
>5. Complex front-end apps with a lot of UI are much, much easier to write in VFP that in .net.
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>So I'll continue to use VFP for front-end apps, and adopt .net for Web apps.
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>As for MSDN: about 6 years ago I purchased MSDN Universal for the first time. Almost all my work consists of developing VFP apps. Nonetheless, I couldn't imagine *not* owning MDSN as a VFP developer. Assuming that I need at least one instance of Win2K server, SQL Server, Office, VFP, and .NET for development and educational purposes, it more than pays for itself immediately. Plus, it keeps me up to date on all the new stuff. It hurts once a year when I have to shell out $2K+, but I wouldn't even think of dropping it.
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>Unlike some people here, I will entrust the details of VFP license counts and revenue to you. Way beyond my level of expertise. About ten years ago I monitored raging debates on Foxforum about MS vs Foxpro, and the confirmed imminent demise of Foxpro at Microsoft's hands. In that time we have had 4 new versions and soon the 5th. I realize that relative newcomers to VFP may not realize that this topic is nothing new, and in fact has been beat to death many, many times. In the meantime, Elvis has been sighted thousands of times.
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>Here in 2002, Foxpro is still alive and Elvis is still dead. Crazy as it would have sounded 10 years ago, Ken Levy is not only a Microsoft employee, but he is in charge of Foxpro. Works for me!